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More than a few people are starting to wonder if the very nature of open-source software ― the idea that it can be used by pretty much anyone for pretty much anything ― is causing its developers big problems in the era of distributed cloud computing services.

Mining data to analyze tracking patterns, Sharon Di, assistant professor of civil engineering and engineering mechanics at Columbia Engineering, has discovered that she can infer the population travel demand level in a region from the trajectories of just a portion of travelers.

If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.

So what's happening is that they're stripping out the sender ID, so that they can re-add it after they've shown the "anonymised" data they're storing to inspectors, but one of the guys working on it accidentally made it a "move" operation, rather than "copy".

Amazing leap of logic; they assume languages are chosen for these features, not coincidental to them. To me, the common threads are 1) how easy is to build passable software and b) how "cool" the languages are.

JavaScript, Python, PHP, TypeScript, Shell, Ruby are "Scripting Languages", i.e. languages for automating simple tasks, with a strong focus on the procedural paradigm (if..else, switch, while, ...). Of course, you can write such simple procedural code also in Java, C++, C# - but these languages are focused on an object-oriented paradigm, i.e. about components and their interactions. Most software developers never cope with the paradigm shift from simple procedural to Object-Oriented Programming (let alone Aspect Oriented Programming, Functional Programming).

I think that's a bit of a dated view of things. Most of the languages that you mentioned do support OOP and functional architectural patterns. These are not just reinterpretations of the classic .bat file or sandboxed BASIC wrappers.

The primary difference between scripting and programming languages is direct memory access: in an scripting language there is no concept of memory address or type size. The architectural patterns, however, are there and should be effectively utilized to write good, modularized code.

"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity."
- Hanlon's Razor

That desire for safety and predictability is evident in the rise of languages that support static typing, where developers can specify the type of each variable, allowing many errors to be flagged when code is compiled.

Like children, we (as in the scripting community and particularly those promoters of Ruby) have to burn our hands on the stove before we learn not to touch things that are glowing red.

And unfortunately there're far too many people born without functioning pain nerves who never learn better.

Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason?
Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful?
--Zachris Topelius

Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies.
-- Sarah Hoyt

".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010-----You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010-----When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013